


As The World Caves In

by florallflwrss



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Flirting, Friendship, Gay, Library, Louis Tomlinson Calls Harry Styles Pet Names, Louis annoys Harry, Louis has daddy issues, Louis is still in the closet, M/M, Pet Names, Playlist, Slow Burn, Uni AU, semi-explicit smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29668125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florallflwrss/pseuds/florallflwrss
Summary: "You have to think outside of what you're just reading, look at the paratext, look beyond the words.""Okay, how much have you smoked?"It's a hedonist world, and two boys are just trying to survive in it.Hey! I imagine this fanfiction will be a bit of a slow burner with a good amount of angst because I can't help myself. I do recommend that you listen to the songs in the chapters. This is the link to the playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7e0jjdgSLAzY9i86sjYk3k?si=iqKHgA1SRBu7VziugLcqXAJust a reminder, this is 100% fictional, the story was made up in my head, and I even changed the boy's personality to meet my storyline, please keep in mind that any events in this that are similar to ones in real life are purely coincidental.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan/OC, Past Louis Tomlinson/OC
Kudos: 2





	As The World Caves In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there was a curly-haired boy, with snappy responses, and large green eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs for this chapter are already on the linked playlist!

Song: This year- Beach Fossils

It was regular, at least for Wednesdays, that the last class would end in a simple sigh from the professor, who would attempt to remind the students about a paper due to the next week, in vain, because the haze of the middle of the week would cloud every mind.

Such a shitty day, Wednesday, right in the middle, too close to Thursday, but too far away from Friday. It's like being 17. Shittiest age ever. Too young to be considered in society, but too old to have the luxury of not having responsibilities.

Louis was no more fond of Wednesday than the next person, his were spent lazily trying to understand his messy notes that were taken in the hot economics classroom, the lack of air conditioning was evidenced by the sweat smudges of the black written letters on the simple paper of a cheap notebook. This Wednesday was no different. It was the start of August, heat still predominant in any and everywhere.

Louis was sat under a large tree, shadow covered his eyes, but did not protect him from the undeniable heat of the sun. His fringe stuck to his forehead with sweat and his muscles felt so tired that even typing was a huge strain. He was in the midst of writing an introduction for his economics paper and he had absolutely no idea as to what he should do. His mind was absent of content, and his textbook was nowhere to be found, probably thrown in some corner of his room.

With a large sigh, he forced his body up and took long, lazy steps across the large, green field that was found between two, long, brick buildings that would be even more delightful if there was air-conditioning in either of them.

Louis loved university, truly, he made amazing friends, awesome shags, great professors, but the weather was terrible. Either way too hot, or way too cold, no in between, and the old buildings were beautiful to see, but the lack of any sort of temperature easing system made Louis hate them.

As he made his way across the school campus his eyes wandered around the sky only a few white clouds decorating its blue glory that was held above everyone's heads. Louis' breath was steady, and he followed the unfamiliar path to the school library. Truth is, he had never really been in there, only passed by the building a few times. He always had his books with him and felt no need to go into a stuffy place, with dim lights and grumpy people, his apartment was much prefered. But when his roommate decided to go on a sex marathon phase, he could no longer peacefully study in his room, the campus was way too hot, and he could not find his textbook anywhere, the library was the last option.

There weren't any major differences in this part of campus, the university kept its traditional red brick aesthetic throughout the school, and the library was no different. It was a bit smaller than the other buildings, and it had glass doors, instead of the common wooden ones most predominant.

Louis approached the building with tired eyes, and no high expectations, but once he opened the doors and felt the cold breeze of air conditioning his eyes went wide, and his heart almost exploded with joy. It was a large chamber, tall ceiling, and enormous shelves filled with books, a few classic ladders against the walls for the books way to high to reach.

There were a few tables scattered around, each had a few green lamps propped upon them. It was silent, only a few turns of pages could be heard, and low typing noises from one of the far tables. There was also a large desk, more like a counter, wooden, matching the same aesthetic of the whole place, what could be seen from the other side of it was a desk computer, and a few scattered books, no one sitting on the empty chair.

Louis' eyes looked around once more. _How is this place not crowded?_ As he let his eyes wander around the shelves, he heard the light sound of wheels on the polished ground, and a book-filled metal cart appeared from behind one of the shelves, a tall man pushing it around.

Song: Young and Beautiful- Lana Del Rey

Louis had to fight himself to look away. The man's posture was slightly hunched forward, letting a few strands fall over his face, even though his medium length hair was tied up in a small bun at the back of his head, that left out the bottom curls. His cheeks looked soft, and lips very red, slightly parted, as his long fingers traced the spine of each book in the cart, eyes scanning each letter as if looking for a specific title.

Louis was in awe, each feature of this man was soft, with a slight sharpness to them that was hypnotising. He let his eyes trace down the brown wool cardigan that covered a white shirt that was tucked into a pair of grey chino pants, and _god_ did his thighs look good in them.

His eyes were suddenly stopped by a loud _ding_ of his phone in his pocket, which made him jump slightly and quickly grab the device. It was a message from Niall.

**_Mate, can you get some chocolate milk at the market? I'm craving some._ **

Louis had to roll his eyes at that. He put the phone back in his pocket, without answering the message, and went to look up to where he had seen the man before, but he no longer found him there. _Maybe it was a dream. It was probably an illusion_. Even though the image of the man was still etched inside his brain, Louis made his way to one of the empty tables, and let his bag down on the chair. He felt a few shivers up his spine, even though outside the weather was hot, in the library the air was cold and made his arm hair stand up.

There were many different shelves in the place, each of them carried a small plaque with the category of the books written on them. It was quite well organised, so it did not take too much time before he found the textbook he was looking for. Louis couldn't help himself, and let his eyes scan the library once again, in search of the curly-haired boy, but once again, was met with nothing.

Louis made his way to the table and pulled one of the chairs back, making a loud screeching noise, to which he was rewarded with a few 'sh's from around the room. His next moves were very careful, because, for some reason, the concentrated people around the library seemed quite intimidating.

He forced his eyes to indulge the contents of the textbook, each word floating around in his brain and spelt out by his fingers against the keyboard. His mind was empty as he typed out information into a blank document, economics had always been easy for him, he didn't have to think much to do his assignments, they were mostly just empty words, surrounding a slightly less simple conclusion.

The silence of the library was suddenly interrupted by a loud ring, that Louis realised, a few seconds later, came from his phone. Another round of 'sh's echoed towards him, and he held his breath and turned off his cell completely, but not before checking the time. 18:30.

Louis let out a small sigh and shut the book, he was only half-way done with the paper, and it was due on Friday, so he made the executive decision he would return tomorrow, because what the hell, the library was his new favourite place on campus, quiet and air conditioning. He also thought it better to take the textbook home for his classes, until he found his own, so he got up and put the book under his arm, slung his backpack over his shoulders and went up to the desk.

Louis' heart almost jumped when he found a curly-haired head bent over, on the other side of the large counter. He walked right in front of the desk, and when his shadow crowded over the book the boy was reading, his head snapped up. Green eyes, meeting with Louis' blue ones.

"Can I help you?" The boy's voice was husky, and now he could see his face better. He looked like a drawing. Maybe a couple of years younger than Louis. His expression was stiff.

"Uhm, yes, I want to take this book home." He said, and out the large economics textbook on the top part of the desk.

"I just need your e-mail." The man said, doing what seemed like, opening a new tab on the computer, eyes no longer on Louis.

"Right, it's louistomlinson@gmail.com," He said, and the boy typed quickly, much less rough than Louis, the sound of his fingers on the keys barely audible.

"What's the book's number?" The boy asked, and Louis' brows furrowed. "The number, on the back of the book." The boy clarified in a sharp tone like he thought Louis was one of the stupidest people on this planet by being confused. Rude.

"Oh, it's 975" The boy nodded at the answer and typed something else, right before handing a blue card to Louis.

"If you don't give the book back in a week, or bring it in for renovation we'll have a warning sent to your e-mail, and if you don't give it back by then we'll charge you the price of the book." He explained a sour tone that did not fit him. Louis' fondness for him was only growing by the second.

"Yes, captain." The small joke was not well-received by the boy, who huffed, clearly annoyed, Louis couldn't help but smirk. "Do you study here? I've never seen you around." Louis commented, eyes on the boy, who was no longer paying attention to him.

"We have a three-strike system here, you already have two, if you make another loud noise next time you're here, you'll be asked to leave." The boy warned him, eyes, now, on the computer. Ah. That's why he was mad at him.

"Don't worry, sweet cheeks, I'll be quiet next time." It was quite entertaining to see the boy's ears flush with a deep shade of red, either of anger or embarrassment, Louis couldn't quite grasp which one. He would leave that question for the next day. Before the boy could even try to retort, Louis was out of the library.

***

Song: High School Never Ends-Bowling For Soup

The flat was its usual mess. A pile pf pizza boxes in the corner of the living room/kitchen, a few unwashed dishes on the skin, and the bin was flooded with ramen packets. He could hear the banging of the headboard coming from one of the two rooms, and Louis knew damn well it wasn't from his. He couldn't help the eye roll that came next, as he walked into his room.

It was a small apartment, four rooms in total, a living room that was also a kitchen, his room, Niall's room and a bathroom they shared, which always exhaled a putrid smell. Louis had been living with Niall since his first year at uni, he was assigned to be his dormmate, once they had enough money they moved into the small flat they live in now, funny how they never got tired of each other, it felt like no time had gone by.

_"Oh! God! Niall!"_

He heard a loud, female voice shout, the walls of the flat were way to thin. With a loud grunt, Louis threw himself on the bed and pressed a pillow around his head, hoping it would make the sounds less loud, maybe he would get suffocated and die on the way. He wasn't complaining.

After a long hour of cramping up the music on his headphones, his door burst open, a grimacing blonde leaning against the doorframe, hair dishevelled, bruises on his neck and shirt sloppily put on.

"D'you bring my chocolate milk?" Niall asked, walking up to Louis.

"No," Louis answered, and Niall pouted, throwing himself on Louis' bed.

"Ew! Get off my bed with that post-sex sweat, I don't want that shit in here." Louis complained, kicking Niall off, onto the ground.

After all these years they still acted like stupid high schoolers.

It was a usual thing they did, bickering, to an outsider it might seem like the wouldn't die for each other deep down, even though they would never admit it out loud. One, because Niall was very much a "no homo" type guy, and two, none of them could talk about their feelings without making a joke.

"Ow!" Niall whined and flicked Louis' nipple. "Where were you all afternoon?" The Irishman asks, and Louis shrugged.

"Not like you missed me." Niall rolled his eyes and hugged Louis, who made a disgusted face.

"Stop being so bitter because I'm getting some and you haven't even gotten a hand-job in weeks." Niall's concept of time had been seriously screwed up since his sex marathon started because Louis had slept with a blonde girl he had met at the bar that Sunday, Liam hadn't been able to shut up about it once he found out, because, apparently, he had to know every single piece of information from Louis' life.

"Uhm, that is a lie!" Louis' voice comes out in a screech, and Niall cackles.

"It's okay to have a dry patch, Lou, I'll have to set you up with a hot girl before your dick dries up, though." Niall is, once again, rolling off the bed, this time by a strong punch against his shoulder.

"Fuck off," Louis grumbles, bitterly.

***

As he layed in bed, staring at the ceiling, eyes tired, and hands behind his back, he starts to recapitulate his day, and suddenly, his thoughts are filled by the image of the snappy, curly-haired boy from the library. Imagining just how capable his mouth was, beyond spitting words with a harsh tone towards him. How his red lips would feel against his skin. How his hands would explore each part of Louis' body.

 _"Fuck_ " Louis was hard. Thinking about the boy he had only once talked to and had not had the most pleasant conversations with. It was quite usual for his body to betray him by burning a sexual image of every single attractive person he ever met on the back of his brain, but it didn't make the masturbation process any less lonely or creepy.

Louis let his hand slip down his boxers, allowing the bubbling feeling at the bottom of his belly grow and take over his body. He came soon enough and was too tired to clean up the mess, so he simply fell asleep, comfortable with the knowledge he would be waking up the next morning despising himself for allowing his body to sleep in the stickiness of his clothes.

He was not incorrect, because when Louis' alarm clock went off at 06:40 in the morning, his immediate reaction was a groan, all too aware of the uncomfortable feeling of his crusty underwear and cum stained sheets.

He let his eyes open slowly, taking in the light from the window, as it crowded the whole room, and the heat it brought along. Louis could not afford to pay for air conditioning, so he had to make peace with a crappy, old, fan, that spun slowly, and barely threw a breeze Louis' way.

The floor was warm as well, the startling feeling of landing warm feet onto cold ground far from Louis' reality as he made his way out of his room, into the bathroom at the end of the hall. He tended to wake up before Niall because his nerves would not calm down if he didn't have spare time to procrastinate before going to class. So he toom the twenty spare minutes he had before Niall awoke, to take a shower, ridding himself of his late-night activities.

He let himself take his own time under the water, but still keeping it under six minutes, so the hot water wouldn't run out while he was shampooing his hair.

Once he was done, Louis made his way towards his room to change into the lightest outfit he could find, in the hopes that he would not melt by the end of the day. His lids were still heavy, seemingly 5 pounds of sleep being hung from his lashes, and he would need about five cups of caffeine to survive the day, so with little to no motivation, he walked out of his room, and towards the kitchen, he went. His steps, though, came to a sudden halt when he felt a slippery, sticky, feeling under his right foot. Louis didn't even need to look down before shouting, loud and angry: _"Niall!"_

"Shit, Tommo, don't yell, mate, 's too early." Niall stumbled out of his room, hair messy, and eyes tired.

"I will yell as much as I want because at the crack of fucking morning, while I'm just trying to get coffee I step on a mother fucking _USED CONDOM_!" Louis' tone raised, anger blazing through his words as he held his foot high from the ground, looking at Niall with fire in his eyes.

"Oh, shit." What happened next almost made Louis snap Niall's neck in half because the Irish dipshit was _cackling_.

"My foot is covered in your jizz at the ass crack of dawn and you are _laughing_?!"Louis' face was of pure indignation and wrath, he would've tackled Niall to the floor if he wasn't too busy wiping off the stickiness from his feet with wipes he kept right beside the sink. "You are disgusting."

"It's fucking funny man." The laughter only became louder.

"It most definitely is not," Louis said, annoyed. "You have the humour of a seventh-grade boy."

"Because you're so sophisticated." Niall scoffed. "You spent an hour laughing because the guy on TV said Uranus and it sounded like _your anus_."

"That was a year ago, let it go!" Louis scrunched his nose and slapped the back of Niall's neck.

"Never." Louis rolled his eyes at that and made his way over to the coffee pot and started to boil his water.

"Can ya make me a cup too? Now that I'm up I won't be able to sleep anymore." Niall hopped on the counter and Louis huffed.

"Fine, but you should appreciate how good of a friend I am, I just stepped on your used condom." As soon as Louis finished his sentence Niall hopped on his back and gave him a wet kiss on the cheek, which made Louis scrunch his nose.

"Love ya so much, Tommo." Louis scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, love ya too."

***

Song: The Bidding-Tally Hall

Louis wasn't a man of many words in the morning, which was the complete opposite of how he was during the rest of the day, but his mind just couldn't process much information before 08:30, so his first lecture completely flew before his eyes, and he retained absolutely no information from it, the fact that his whole body felt like it was melting also didn't help much.

Once he got the will to get up from his chair he checked his schedule on his phone, because, even after a good five months of having the same time table he did not make any effort to memorise it.

_Econ 105._

It was a bit ironic he hated this exact class so much and was planning on majoring in it. He liked the content, of course, he did, he grew up knowing he would study it, but the professor just could not possibly talk any slower. He was though, undoubtfully, the best student in the class, by far.

Louis made his way out of the calculus classroom and walked to the end of the hall, lucky for him, most of his classes were in the same building, so he didn't have the inconvenience of walking across campus with a five minute time crunch between each lecture.

"Hey, Louis, wait up!" It was a screechy, familiar voice, and as Louis turned around he was already expecting to see the pointy-nosed, blonde girl that was in the same English lit class as him from his first year. _Isobel Williams._

Thing is, Isobel, or Izzy, as she always prefered, was his last girlfriend, if you could even call it that, they had broken up a whole while, but she had never caught on with the message that he did not want anything with her.

"Oh, hi, Izz." Louis' smile was crooked, clearly uncomfortable at the way the girl was leaning. forward, almost hovering over him.

"What've you been up to, Lou?" Her mouth made out loud chewing noises as she spoke with a bright piece of pink bubblegum swaying around in her mouth.

"Nothin' much, just hanging around." He shrugged and looked at the clock. He still had two minutes. "Look, Izzie, I've gotta run, class' about to start." Louis never had a problem with lying, he considered it one of his greatest gifts.

"You never call me anymore." Her attempt of a pout almost made Louis cackle, because it had less than no effect on him.

"Sorry, Izz, been busy with school." Louis grinned and was quite pleased with Izzie's sigh and nod.

"I just miss you." That almost made Louis die of laughter. Honestly. He'd seen her sneak out of Niall's room about five times since the beginning of the month.

"Thanks, I really have to go now, bye." Louis walked away from her, not even bothering looking back because he already knew her lips would be parted to let out an indignation filled gasp.

His relationship with Isobel had been pretty simple and lasted about 6 months of bland sex where he would have to think about guys to get a boner, and obvious cheating from her part, not that he really cared anyway, they never really had feelings for each other, he notices that now that he looks back at it.

The Economics classroom was almost full once Louis got there, it was a bit smaller than the other lecture rooms, and had prickly, grey seats, which were hellish, because, not only did they mark the skin of his thighs when he was wearing shorts, but they also heated up his legs and back way too much.

Louis sat down in a seat on the far right of the large blackboard next to the wall, so he could lean his head on something else than his hand. His wrists were already sore from holding his head up in his first lecture.

As soon as Louis sat down on the prickly chair, hot air hitting his face, he got up once again. Fuck it. He already knew what the teacher was going to say, and, honestly, he didn't even give a shit anymore. The year had barely started, but his mind was absolutely exhausted.

When Louis was walking out of the room he allowed his mind to wander, think its deepest thoughts, find sad memories that made his heartache, remember something funny that would leave a bubbly feeling in his stomach, but instead, it landed on the memory of a certain curly-haired boy that had sharp words, and soft green eyes.

A small grin graced Louis' lips and he immediately changed his route towards the library, thinking of many ways he could make noises to get the boy to talk to him. See his thick brows furrow over his eyes. See his ears flush red with irritation.

Song: Problems-Hala

The library was emptier this time, probably because of lectures, and he wondered if the boy, who he desperately wanted to know the name of, would be here because of it. His worries, though, were cut short when he entered the place and saw a head filled with curls hovering over a book at the front desk.

"Good morning," Louis said, voice cheery as he approached the desk and saw green eyes dart from the pages to Louis, this time, he wore large, round-ish glasses, he exhaled innocence. Maybe it was just Louis, but he could definitely spot a cloud of confusion on the boys' irises.

"You don't need to greet me, you can just go do what you have to do here, y'know?" The boy's voice was still as raspy as it was yesterday, except his words came out less surely this time. Louis furrowed his brows.

"But I want to, plus," Louis said. "You're what I'm here to do." This time, it was the boy's cheeks that flushed, giving him a much more jovial look that got Louis' grin to widen impossibly more.

"You just met me, don't you think that to be a bit precipitant?" The boy slumped his shoulders, maybe trying to look unamused, but the pink gleam on his cheeks was much louder. "This is also extremely inappropriate given our settings."

"So if we were in a different _setting_ you'd consider getting with me?" Louis dragged the word 'setting' a bit amused with the formal and complete way the boy spoke, so slowly and clearly. The boy's curls bounced as he scoffed, cheeks redder by the second.

"Whoever said you were my type?" The boy's left eyebrow arched slightly. _God, he's gorgeous_.

"Just took my own conclusions by the way your cheeks got red when I talked to you." Louis beamed when the flush took over the boy's whole face.

"Th-that's... I can't control that." The boy mumbled and took the back of his hands to his cheeks.

"Don't worry, babe, I won't tell anyone." Louis winked.

"This is very inappropriate, you're already on strike three, if you continue I'll ask you to leave." It was quite funny to Louis the way the boy tried to hide the pink on his cheeks with a stern voice.

"So you were serious about that? Hm, I was wondering." Louis shrugged. "Well, I wanted to ask if I could buy this book." He dropped the large textbook he had gotten from the library a day before. "I can't find my own."

The boy's scoff was louder this time. "We're a library, not a bookstore." He said, voice a bit incredulous. "You can't _buy_ the books." He said slower and mockingly as if he were explaining something to a first-grader, which made Louis roll his eyes.

"I _know_ that." He had not. "Maybe you could make an exception..." Louis raised an eyebrow and winked at the boy, who rolled his eyes.

"We cannot, I can, however, ask you to leave."

"Fine, fine, be like that." Louis rolled his eyes, smirk still on his lips. "How do you get your curls to be so bouncy?" The boy's eyes showed confusion, _what kind of question was that?_ Louis could almost read that out from his mind.

"What?" The boy asked, almost as if asking if Louis had actually asked that.

"I mean, they're so cute and fluffy." Louis reached out and pulled lightly on one of the curls, making the boy flush even brighter hair.

"I-I just wash them with shampoo and dry them with a towel, nothing much." The boy shrugged.

"Well, that's no help, Curly." Louis crossed his arms. "How am I supposed to not be jealous of this hair especially since it's all-natural?" The boy's cheek twitched slightly, and when he bit his bottom lip Louis could swear he was holding back a smile.

"I have a name y'know?" The boy said, voice back with sharpness, but with the same slow, drag of the vowels.

"Well, how about you tell me what it is then?" Louis leaned forward on the desk. "Let's see if it's as pretty as you are, babe." The boys cleared his throat and shook his head.

"No, I don't want you stalking me." That made Louis grin.

"Do I really seem like the type of person that would do that?"

"Yes." Louis almost jumped and screamed when he saw the small smirk showing onto the boy's face. Louis never expected a smile to look so good on someone. It was small, but it felt like the greatest conquest. in the world. "Now, I actually am busy, so if you could leave me be, I would appreciate it." His voice was calmer.

"I'll be back, Curls," Louis answered, his own lips curving up as he walked towards the door.

"Sure you will." The boy's voice was one of disbelief, but Louis could hear a small chuckle at the end of it, and with a proud, puffed up chest, he walked out of the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I expect the next chapters will be longer and much more interesting, this was a first look into what the story will be like, I hope you liked it!


End file.
